The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology

By Richard Bauckham, Trevor Hart and Nathan MacDonald

  A significant dialogue between biblical scholars and theologians.

The contributors to this substantial volume examine a number of key theological themes in the letter to the Hebrews: the person and nature of the Son, his high-priestly work, cosmology, the epistle's theology of Scripture, supersessionism, the call to faith, and more. 

Contributors:
Edward Adams
Loveday Alexander
Harold W. Attridge
Richard Bauckham
Markus Bockmuehl
Daniel Driver
Douglas Farrow
Trevor Hart
Richard B. Hays
Stephen R. Holmes
Morna Hooker
Edison M. Kalengyo
Mariam J. Kamell
Bruce L. McCormack
Nathan MacDonald
I. Howard Marshall
R. Walter L. Moberly
Carl Mosser
Mark Nanos
Nehemia Polen
John Polkinghorne
Ken Schenck
Oskar Skarsaune
Daniel J. Treier
John Webster
Ben Witherington
Terry J. Wright

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Jun 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467442428

Book preview

Introduction

Nathan MacDonald

The essays collected in this volume were first presented in 2006 as papers at the second St. Andrews Conference on Scripture and Theology held in the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. The topic of the conference was the title of this volume: The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology. The aim of this conference and the one on John and Christian Theology in 2003 (also published by Eerdmans) was to bring biblical scholars and systematic theologians together in conversation around a biblical text that has played a formative role in Christian theology through the centuries. This does not often happen. In the modern period, but especially in the last few decades, the disciplines of biblical studies and systematic theology have grown so far apart as to seem hardly within shouting distance of each other. The two disciplines are natural partners who have lost the means of effective communication with each other, so absorbed have they become in their own issues. Oddly, while they have been withdrawing from interdisciplinary relationships with each other, in the last few decades both biblical studies and theology have been notable for the way they have interacted across boundaries with disciplines such as literary studies, the social sciences, and philosophy. The reasons for this are various, but there is growing concern about it among many in both disciplines. The interest this conference generated is one indication of that concern. Some of us who teach in these fields may have noticed that students are often keen to relate their work in biblical studies to their work in theology and vice versa, while the way they are taught often discourages this. Anyone concerned with the way these two academic disciplines can serve the life of the church will surely also lament the lack of conversation between them.

The conference provided a rare opportunity for biblical scholars and systematic theologians to work together towards bridging the gap by entering a conversation fruitful to both. The essays in this volume are the most tangible results, though much that happened around the papers, including the lively interaction of many other scholars and students who attended the conference, was also important. All the main papers and a small selection of the many offered short papers are included here.

The plan of the conference was to address a number of the key issues that arise when Christian theologians read the Epistle to the Hebrews today. The ways in which these essays seek to relate biblical studies and theology are themselves notably varied. It would be hard to find a common methodology for that task at work in all the essays, though there are many points of convergence. Some essays, like some of the topics, go further in an interdisciplinary direction than others. But this is merely part of a conversation that can only be enriched by variety and experimentation.

The Christology of Hebrews

The epistle to the Hebrews confronts us in its opening exordium with the central theological issue of how to speak rightly about the God who spoke in the past and continues to speak now through a Son. How is justice to be done to the affirmations that the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his nature, whilst still speaking about the one who is the Majesty on high, at whose right hand the Son sits? The theological issues to be played out in future controversies are already adumbrated: the nature and character of the Son, and the eternal relations of Father and Son. Yet are future Christological and Trinitarian affirmations of church councils congruent with the assertions that are made in Hebrews?

For Richard Bauckham this question can be answered in the affirmative. In his view, "the earliest Christology was already in nuce the highest Christology. All that remained was to work through consistently what it could mean for Jesus to belong integrally to the unique identity of the one God." To understand how in the context of first-century Jewish monotheism Jesus could have been related to God in such surprising ways Bauckham develops the idea of the unique identity of God, rather than by making recourse to arguments about divine nature. Bauckham’s essay argues that Hebrews designates Jesus as Son, Lord and High Priest. In each case Jesus must share in the unique identity of God, but it is also crucial to each that Jesus shares our humanity.

Whilst Bauckham focuses more strongly on the divinity of Jesus Christ, Bruce McCormack gives attention to the humanity of the Son. McCormack is concerned with the theological integrity of the early church’s Christological affirmations, but believes that aspects of their construal within orthodoxy need to be reconceived. Through dialogue with John Owen, Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, McCormack develops a Christology that offers a more satisfactory account of the role of the Spirit in the life of Jesus, and is not constrained by untenable notions of divine impassibility. Such concerns are, of course, found in a number of modern theologians and have been stimulated, at least in part, by attentiveness to aspects of the biblical text overlooked in the pre-modern period. For McCormack, however, it is important that his Christology is not only broadly attentive to New Testament emphases, but that it can be shown through detailed textual analysis to be congruent with the apostolic witness. McCormack argues that Heb. 5:5–10 is an important place for examining the intersection of exegetical and dogmatic theology, and an ideal context for testing his own Christological proposals.

In his essay John Webster sets out an account of theological interpretation and offers a careful and detailed exposition of the exordium (1:1–4). For Webster theological interpretation means attending to Scripture as communication from God addressed to the community of faith. This means we are enclosed by the word that addresses us, such that we cannot treat it as an object to peer behind (that is, through history of religions) or to transcend through conceptual translation. Webster’s insistence that the text addresses us with divine realities, to which theological exegesis must do justice, results in an exposition that often disagrees with modern interpreters. This is especially the case when poor theological judgements inform a reading of the text of Hebrews (note the critiques of Caird and Dunn). Yet Webster is not content to repristinate the insights of ancient interpreters and can distance himself from them as well. Although the exordium demands an account of God’s eternal being that does justice to what is affirmed about God and the Son, Webster is clear that the exordium does not offer any proto-trinitarian hints. In addition, the theological tradition can also take false moves (note the critique of patristic attribution of the work of purification to the human nature). For Webster, then, Hebrews’ affirmations about one who is Son demand an interpretation that attends to the theological realities of such affirmations.

If we are to speak of Christ as the one who is Son, it is also necessary to address the question of Hebrews’ understanding of the Father. This is, as Harold Attridge reminds us, the indispensable horizon for the Christology of Hebrews. In his essay Attridge provides a comprehensive account of Hebrews’ understanding of God, locating it in the author’s own self-perception of himself as an orator and his parenetic intentions for his audience. The resulting portrayal emphasizes God as the creator and sustainer of the world and the moral order, whilst also having a care for the children he has called to glory. To them the author directs speech lifted from the Old Testament and placed on God’s lips. The God of the writer to the Hebrews offers expiation for sin and a promise of rest, but also threatens eschatological judgement to those who do not heed.

The Problem of Hebrews’ Cosmology

It has occasionally been argued that the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews subscribes to a Platonic cosmology. Even where Hebrews’ cosmology is described in more nuanced terms, the apparent contrast between heaven and earth—with the earthly world just a sketch and shadow of the heavenly one—is philosophically problematic in the modern world. The theologically interested interpreter is faced with various challenges. Can the cosmology of Hebrews be made palatable, or explicable, in a different context? If it cannot, can the other aspects of Hebrews’ message be detached from its cosmological outlook?

From the very beginning of his essay John Polkinghorne acknowledges the chasm between Hebrews’ platonic cast of thought and the assumptions of modern science. Yet beyond shallow comparisons Polkinghorne shows that there are many surprising points of intersection between what modern science is discovering about the cosmos and Hebrews’ own view of the world. The point according to Polkinghorne is not to argue that Hebrews already anticipates the perspective of modern science—so much of what Polkinghorne explores lies far beyond the biblical author’s horizon. Rather it is to suggest that both perspectives have more overlap than might first appear and each offer insight into a profound and hopeful reality.

Edward Adams provides a detailed study of the cosmology of Hebrews. He demonstrates that whilst Hebrews does envisage a two-storied universe with the heavens being superior, the epistle does have a positive view of the creation. Its cosmology is derived not from platonic sources, but from the Greek Old Testament. Adams also shows that the writer’s christological convictions have shaped his cosmology. To jettison the latter entails damaging the former.

The relation of the Son to the cosmos is also the focus of Terry Wright’s essay. According to the exordium of Hebrews the Son sustains all things by his powerful word. Too many interpreters, Wright observes, are content to reaffirm this providential statement, and fail to probe how this can be so. An exception is Pannenberg who relates the Son’s self-distinction from the Father to the world’s creaturely autonomy. Wright analyses Pannenberg’s arguments and finds them wanting; Pannenberg himself ultimately resorts to restatement rather than explanation. In contrast, Wright draws upon recent work on the cultic rituals in Leviticus to argue that the Son’s power to sustain derives from his act of purification. This indicates a divine affirmation of the value of creation, not its repudiation.

The Problem of Hebrews’ Supersessionism

With its insistence on the superiority of the new in relation to the old, and its presentation of the law as a mere shadow of the realities made manifest in Jesus Christ, the epistle to the Hebrews appears to strike an unashamedly supersessionistic note. In the past the epistle’s tone was greeted as the melodic praise of the Christian religion rightfully replacing its dysfunctional ancestor. In our present theological and religious context, however, such sounds grate disturbingly. On the other side of the holocaust the epistle’s understanding of the new revelation in Christ and its relationship to what preceded it presses itself upon us as an issue of first-order importance.

Richard Hays is more than acquainted with a reading of the epistle that finds in it a strong supersessionism, for as his disarming introduction makes clear he himself assumed such an understanding of Hebrews. His essay outlines his considered re-evaluation of the communis opinio. As Hays observes, bringing a Jewish-Christian contrast to Hebrews is to work with anachronistic categories since the parting of the ways is hardly complete or simple at the time of composition. Hays argues that we should view the letter as an example of what he terms new covenantalism. Seen in this way Hebrews is a particular manifestation of first-century sectarian Judaism which engages with the scriptural witness in the light of Jesus Christ. There is no suggestion that Israel has been replaced by Gentile believers; when the old covenant is seen as deficient it is only the cult as a means of remitting sins that is in view. Finally, Hays addresses Wedderburn’s argument that Hebrews’ logic is ultimately self-subverting and illogical by appealing to the idea that Hebrews is a self-consuming artifact. It is meant to lead the reader beyond its own rhetoric to an encounter with the living God.

In a response to Hays’s argument Oskar Skarsaune demonstrates from the early church just how problematic a category like supersessionism is. The response to Judaism by 1 Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius or Justin varies considerably, each demonstrating supersessionistic instincts at points, but not at others. The question of Hebrews’ supersessionism, thus, turns on the question of definition. Mark Nanos likewise draws our attention to the problems of definition, observing how the definition of terms profoundly impacts whether one finds the author of Hebrews to be supersessionistic or not. In relation to Hays’s proposal that Hebrews offers a new covenantalism, Nanos asks whether the new (ἐνεκαίνισεν) and living way opened by Jesus is to be understood as a new, a renewed or a continued covenant?

In her essay Morna Hooker takes a hard look at cherished understandings of the original setting and readership of the epistle. She questions whether Hebrews is concerned that converted Jews might return to their former religion. Such an understanding assumes the parting of the ways has already taken place and over-interprets the writer’s warnings to his readers. In offering an alternative understanding of the epistle, Hooker provides an overview of the entire argument. In her view the writer to the Hebrews wrestles with questions similar to those that confronted the apostle Paul, albeit in the context of Jewish Christian believers, rather than Paul’s gentile mission. In particular, what happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s purpose as it is set out in the Old Testament. The writer to the Hebrews realizes, as his readers still do not, that the death of Christ means the end of the Jerusalem cult and that for them to continue with its practice is to deny the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice.

Both Hooker and Hays agree that Hebrews’ supersessionism is limited to the sacrificial cult. The book of Hebrews’ critique of the cult, Nehemiah Polen observes, has two elements. First, the sacrifices must be made again and again; secondly, the mediator is a flawed human being, subject to weakness. The question is whether Hebrews’ sophisticated critique of the cult has really grasped a genuine weakness in the theology of the priestly writer (P). Drawing upon recent scholarship on P, Polen argues that P contains a proleptic response to the concerns raised by Hebrews at its very core. On the one hand, P glories in the endless repetition, for divine blessing is always needed in the context of human imperfection. Secondly, P recognizes the frailty of the priestly caste, but finds strength in the divine presence that inhabits the Holy of Holies. The Yom Kippur rituals draw the high priest into the heart of the Tabernacle where the divine glory can restore him to original purity.

The Soteriology of Hebrews

With the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ radically altering the understanding of the Jerusalem cult, we find ourselves quite naturally concerned with the question of how the book perceives salvation. The epistle draws deeply upon cultic imagery from the Old Testament to describe the result of Christ’s work. Jesus Christ is the high priest who has offered the better sacrifice which truly attains purification of sins. The soteriological vision of the epistle has affected Christian thinking in various ways.

Howard Marshall works through the entire epistle to describe its soteriological teaching. Whilst it has much in common with other New Testament epistles, Hebrews’ soteriology has a number of distinctive elements. Marshall draws particular attention to the importance of cleansing. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is accepted by God when he enters the heavenly sanctuary and becomes the means of cleansing the consciences of believers. Marshall also observes the importance of the Christus Victor theme in the book of Hebrews. The power of the devil is dashed on what Hebrews presents as Christ’s indestructible life. The result is a salvation that the readers of Hebrews must grasp through repentance, obedience and faith, being assured that in so doing they will also receive the promised perfection and eternal rest.

Stephen Holmes examines Hebrews’ understanding of salvation within the context of Christian soteriology. He cautions against a focus solely on the mechanism of salvation; this tends to obscure the fact that salvation is always a salvation from some problem and towards a promised end. Such an observation is especially pertinent for Hebrews since the epistle stresses the future value of salvation. The present sufferings of the original readers are to be considered nothing in the light of the glorious salvation that is promised. To emphasize the promised end is not, however, to suggest that Hebrews has nothing to contribute to the how of salvation. Holmes reflects upon the possibility that sacrifice was providentially designed to communicate Christ’s act of salvation. From this perspective sacrifice, as presented in the Old Testament, is not just one soteriological metaphor amongst many, but a particular and privileged account. Yet this entails a further issue that Holmes addresses: whether the meaning of sacrifice survives its textualization, or can only exist in the experience of sacrificial practice.

Hebrews in the Modern World

For many modern readers of Hebrews, the language of sacrifice, cleansing and priesthood emphasizes the distance between them and the world of the epistle. On the far side of the Enlightenment’s suspicion of all things relating to ritual such ideas are alien and alienating. It is, perhaps, surprising and noteworthy that the two essays which are most self-conscious in their addressing of the church in the modern world draw especially on the cultic imagery in the book. Douglas Farrow recognizes quite explicitly the unattractiveness of both kingship and priesthood in our would-be egalitarian world. For those few who still hold a respect for either office it is inconceivable that the two should be united. Yet, Farrow argues, the priest-king Melchizedek is not just one type among many in Hebrews, but the unifying type of the epistle. Jesus Christ, the true Melchizedek, not only offers the perfect sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuary, but also takes his place at the right hand of God. Crossing swords with Troeltsch, who tried to secure a place for Jesus in modern culture by stripping him of his sacerdotal and royal garb, Farrow argues that we cannot abandon the christology of Hebrews if we wish to understand and account for our culture and our times. It is not that the priest-king has disappeared from modern societies; it is only that his clothes and office have been stolen by a culture which thinks falsely that it can do without his mediation.

Edison Kalengyo, on the other hand, uses the cultic language of Hebrews to address Ganda society, a society where sacrificial and priestly ideas continue to have communal relevance. Here it has been Christian missionaries that have been keen to remove any resonances between the cultic elements of Christianity and traditional Ganda religion. This has resulted in a dissonance between Ganda Christians and their culture. Thus, in spite of the apparent success of Christianity, traditional Gandan sacrificial ritual is on the increase. The solution, according to Kalengyo, is a theology of inculturation that is able to appropriate aspects of Ganda sacrifice into the church’s celebration of the Eucharist. Kalengyo develops this argument by creating a dialogue that involves the exegesis of Hebrews 9–10, the celebration of the Eucharist and Ganda sacrifice.

Hebrews’ Theology of Scripture

The book of Hebrews is suffused with scriptural citations, allusions and patterns. In this respect it is not significantly different from some other New Testament writings including, for example, some of the Pauline epistles and Revelation. Yet, Hebrews’ engagement with the Scriptures has its own distinctive elements that demand further exploration.

In his essay Daniel Treier drops three probes into the book at critical points in order to discern Hebrews’ understanding of Scripture. In 3:7–4:13 Treier argues that speech-act theory provides a useful tool for clarifying how God both speaks and acts through Scripture in the past and also in the present. In Hebrews 5:11–14 scriptural interpretation is seen as something that is more than an exercise in cognition, but entails spiritual formation: the development of a capacity to discern. Finally, in 12:18–29 Treier argues that Hebrews, whilst retaining an emphasis on the aural, promotes the importance of the other senses. Not only that, but our physical senses relate to Scripture’s figural senses, for the imagination operates as the spiritual and synthetic faculty by which we perceive our place and time in the story of God’s covenant people.

Ken Schenck also sketches out something of Hebrews’ theology of Scripture, placing it assiduously in its first-century context. He notes how the author of Hebrews can take the Scriptures in a literal manner as the direct words of God or characters in Israel’s history, but shift into non-literal interpretations to illustrate salvation-history truths. These non-literal modes of interpretation can include what twentieth-century scholarship sought to distinguish as typological and allegorical modes of reading. Hebrews knows nothing of this distinction and is happy to move between them. A different type of non-literal reading is when the writer to the Hebrews interprets certain scriptural texts as the words of Christ or the Holy Spirit. What unites these various approaches to the Scriptures that have been identified, Schenck argues, is an eschatological hermeneutic.

The Call to Faith in Hebrews

The most famous chapter in the Epistle to the Hebrews is, of course, chap. 11, the gallery of Old Testament saints who lived by faith. In the conference a morning was devoted to the chapter with speakers (Moberly, Bockmuehl, MacDonald, Mosser, and Alexander) selecting as their subject a character or characters from the chapter. In addition, other speakers at the conference addressed the subject of faith. The resulting papers are instructive in their diversity. They illustrate the fact that examining the text with an eye to theological matters is an approach, not a method.

Walter Moberly weaves an interpretation of Abel which relates his appearance in Heb. 11 to the original story about him in Gen. 4. He offers a reading of Heb. 11:4 that sees the writer to the Hebrews as an attentive theological reader of Israel’s scriptures in their septuagintal form. Following the Septuagint, the Hebrews writer’s instinct is to rationalize Abel’s action, which marks a major departure from the Hebrew form of the story; he also views the cry of Abel’s blood as a cry of mercy, not of vengeance, which he infers from the intrinsic logic of the story. Moberly concludes by reflecting on the implications of the hermeneutics of Hebrews for Christian use of Scripture today.

Markus Bockmuehl more firmly locates his reading of Abraham in the Epistle to the Hebrews, whilst also being attentive to the questions that have been raised about the book’s understanding of the patriarch. In three ways he disputes cherished readings of the Epistle. Bockmuehl argues that Hebrews’ supersessionism is more nuanced than is usually granted, reflecting only a replacement of the cult in the post–AD 70 reality. Faith is not blind, but directed towards eschatological promises that are presently hidden. Finally, Bockmuehl suggests that Hebrews takes a significant step along the way towards a typological interpretation of the sacrifice of Isaac.

In his essay Nathan MacDonald uses the history of interpretation as a means of tackling a well-known textual crux: the acceptance by Moses of the reproach of Christ. His journey through the text’s reception reveals that concern with the object of faith appears only in the early modern period. Further, the dominant interpretation in the Middle Ages is restrained in its reading of the text and, in this instance, does not discern Christological types. MacDonald attempts to mediate between the concerns of early and modern interpreters, by finding the presence of Christ in the suffering people of God.

Carl Mosser argues for the thorough integration of Heb. 11 in the epistle’s argument. Attentive to the chapter’s literary and rhetorical structure, he suggests that Rahab is the climactic figure amongst the heroes of faith. Observing that the description of Rahab is derived primarily from Joshua 6 rather than Joshua 2, Mosser suggests that her act of faith was to go outside the camp. Rahab is, therefore, paradigmatic for the kind of response expected of Hebrews’ readers. They are called to imitate Rahab by abandoning their city. Citing Second Temple Jewish texts, he argues that the camp was a well-known halakhic designation for pre-70 Jerusalem.

Loveday Alexander provides an interpretation of the anonymous, if also identifiable, prophets and martyrs that conclude the gallery of those who lived by faith in Heb. 11. The list of those who fought and suffered is placed in the context of ancient Jewish literature which also reflected upon these heroes of Jewish history. Alexander does not leave the martyrs contextualized in the ancient world, but forces them squarely into the world of the twenty-first century. In a world where those who flew into the World Trade Center and those who blew themselves up in London see themselves as martyrs, the celebration of the exemplars of faith in 11:32–40 becomes extremely problematic. Alexander refuses to ignore the issues and examines the way in which Hebrews might provide a theological resource for rethinking the concept of martyrdom.

Yet another approach to reading the text of Hebrews theologically is found in Mariam Kamell’s essay. Kamell compares the understanding of faith in Hebrews and James. As she notes, a number of common emphases makes such a comparison very fruitful, though the focus on Pauline understanding of faith means that these commonalities have been overlooked by New Testament scholars. Both epistles view faith as something that is inseparable from actions, most especially, the need to endure. They also share an interest in Abraham and Rahab as paradigms of faith. In the context of first-century Jewish literature the former is not surprising, but the latter certainly is.

This collection of essays reaches its climax, as also the conference did, not with another academic paper, but with a sermon. To some, used to the norms of the academic biblical guild, this may seem inappropriate, even unworthy. However, for the account of theology to which the conference organizers subscribe, all reflection on God must find its ultimate expression in worship. This is especially the case when a book like Hebrews is being studied. Not only because the book itself is an extended homily seeking a response from its readers, but also because it presents a God who has spoken in the past and now speaks—still speaks—through his Son. In his sermon Ben Witherington offers his own word of encouragement (13:22). He takes as his text Hebrews 12, observing how the climax of the sermon to the Hebrews centers on the eschatological Christophany at Christ’s parousia which is shown to be better than the one Moses and Israel received at Mount Sinai. In light of this Witherington calls his hearers (and readers) to embrace by faith God’s promises and to fix their eyes upon Jesus.

The Ongoing Conversation

Biblical scholars and theologians often belong to different professional organizations and attend different professional conferences. Even when they attend the same conference (e.g., SBL/AAR), rarely do they attend the same sessions. The first two St Andrews Conferences on Scripture and Theology have been appreciated by all who attended for the enjoyable and fruitful academic exchange across disciplinary boundaries that they have generated. A further conference is being planned on Genesis for 2009. The St. Andrews conferences have been successful because biblical scholars and theologians were given opportunity and reason to converse with one another about topics of mutual interest and concern. The ardent nature of those conversations suggests that the conversation between our disciplines is long overdue. It is also a signpost, among others, pointing towards a not-too-distant future when interdisciplinary conversation and collaboration between these two natural partners will become, no longer occasional and surprising, but a normal and essential element in the flourishing of both.

THE CHRISTOLOGY OF HEBREWS

The Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews

Richard Bauckham

1. A Christology of Divine Identity

In several publications I have argued that New Testament christology is best characterized as a christology of divine identity.¹ This is a christological model that is common to all or most of the documents of the New Testament, underlying the variety that is to be found in the more specific features of christology in these texts. Hebrews is no exception, and I hope to show in this essay how Hebrews performs an original variation on the common model.

Essentially a christology of divine identity includes Jesus in the unique identity of God as understood in Second Temple Judaism. It takes up the defining characteristics of Jewish monotheism—the ways in which the God of Israel was understood to be unique—and applies them also to Jesus. We need to begin with those divine characteristics.

We are concerned with the ways in which Jews identified their God as unique, the ways in which they distinguished him from all other reality.² For this purpose I believe that the category of unique identity does more justice to the material than that of divine nature (though the latter can, as we shall see, take a subordinate place within the overarching notion of identity). For Jewish monotheistic faith what was most important was who God is, rather than what divinity is.

The key features of the unique identity of God are these:

God is the sole Creator of all things (all others are created by God);

God is the sole sovereign Ruler over all things (all others are subject to God’s rule);

God is known through his narrative identity (that is, who God is in the story of his dealings with creation, all the nations, and Israel);

God will achieve his eschatological rule (when all creatures acknowledge YHWH’s sole deity);

The name YHWH names God in his unique identity;

God alone may and must be worshipped (since worship is acknowledgement of God’s sole deity);

God alone is fully eternal (self-existent from past to future eternity).

Only with the last of these features do we encounter what could be called an attribute of divine nature. It is the metaphysical attribute of God most often encountered in Jewish literature. It distinguishes God as the only truly eternal one. God alone is inherently eternal, existing from eternity to eternity. Already in the classic monotheistic assertions of Deutero–Isaiah, God is the First and the Last.³ This particular attribute of divine nature is virtually entailed by the claims that God is the sole Creator and sole Ruler of all things. Everything else comes into existence by his will and perdures only by his will.

The uniquely divine attribute of full eternity was also the point at which the Jewish understanding of the divine identity coincided most obviously and conveniently with hellenistic God-talk. Jewish writers were therefore not afraid to use hellenistic philosophical language about divine eternity, a point which we shall see is important for Hebrews.

Early Christianity, very consciously using this Jewish theological framework, created a kind of christological monotheism by understanding Jesus to be included in the unique identity of the one God of Israel. Probably the earliest expression of this to which we have access—and it was certainly in use very early in the first Christian community’s history—was the understanding of Jesus’ exaltation in terms of Ps. 110:1.⁴ Jesus, seated on the divine throne in heaven as the one who will achieve the eschatological lordship of God and in whom the unique sovereignty of the one God will be acknowledged by all, is included in the unique rule of God over all things, and thus placed unambiguously on the divine side of the absolute distinction that separates the only sovereign One from all creation. God’s rule over all things defines who God is: it cannot be delegated as a mere function to a creature. Thus the earliest christology was already in nuce the highest christology. All that remained was to work through consistently what it could mean for Jesus to belong integrally to the unique identity of the one God. Early Christian interest was primarily in soteriology and eschatology, the concerns of the gospel, and so in the New Testament it is primarily as sharing or implementing God’s eschatological lordship that Jesus is understood to belong to the identity of God. But early Christian reflection could not consistently leave it at that. If Jesus was integral to the identity of God, he must have been so eternally; and so the great passages of protological christology, such as the Johannine prologue, Col. 1 and Heb. 1, include Jesus also in the unique creative activity of God and in the uniquely divine eternity. This was the early Christians’ Jewish way of preserving monotheism against the ditheism that any kind of adoptionist Christology was bound to involve.

A christology of divine identity thus offers a way beyond the misleading alternatives of functional christology or ontological christology. Certain divine functions, if we have to use that word, are not mere functions, but integral to who God is. If Jesus performs such functions and if monotheism is to be retained, as it was in early Christianity, then he must belong to the identity of the one God. Jesus cannot function as God without being God. The point becomes even clearer once we recognize that a clearly ontological condition attaches to the divine functions of creation and sovereign rule. Only the one who alone is eternal in the full sense can be the creator of all things and sovereign ruler of all things. When this uniquely divine eternity is attributed also to Jesus it is clear that the early Christians knew precisely what they were doing, in Jewish theological terms, when they understood Jesus to participate in the creative work and the eschatological rule of the one God.⁵

One more preliminary point is worth making: that for the early Jewish Christians the primary medium of theological development was exegesis, meticulous and disciplined exegesis of scriptural texts deployed with the sophisticated exegetical techniques of contemporary Jewish scholarship. Thus from the beginning a few biblical texts were of central importance for understanding the status of the exalted Jesus, some of these closely linked by catchword or other connections. Psalm 110, as already mentioned, along with Pss. 2 and 8,⁶ was prominent, and Hebrews situates itself within this christological focus especially on psalms, making the more traditional christological reading of certain psalms the basis for its more creative developments in interpreting these same psalms and others. Famously, of course, Hebrews exploits the full implications for a christology of divine identity already familiar in Christian reading of the first verse of Ps. 110 and extends the exegesis to v. 4. The extent to which the argument of Hebrews is structured as exegesis of Ps. 110, with other texts cited to aid this exegesis, is such that more than one scholar has called Hebrews itself a commentary on Ps. 110.⁷

2. The Structure of Jesus’ Identity in Hebrews

The main contention of this paper is that Hebrews attributes to Jesus Christ three main categories of identity—Son, Lord, High Priest—and that each of these categories requires Jesus both to share the unique identity of God and to share human identity with his fellow-humans. In each category, Hebrews portrays Jesus as both truly God and truly human, like his Father in every respect and like humans in every respect.

The most fundamental category is that of the Son of God who shares eternally the unique identity of his Father, the unique identity of the God of Israel and the God of all reality. But sonship to God also characterizes Jesus’ human solidarity with his fellow-humans. His mission in incarnation was to bring many human sons and daughters of God to glory (2:10–12). Thus sonship in Hebrews is both a divinely exclusive category (Jesus’ unique relationship with the Father) and a humanly inclusive category (a form of relationship to the Father that Jesus shares with those he redeems).

As the eternally pre-existent Son of God, Jesus Christ is destined and qualified for the two main roles in God’s eschatological activity of salvation. Because he is the unique Son of the Father, appointed heir of all things (1:2), he can exercise God’s eschatological rule over all things as Lord and he can make full atonement for sins as the heavenly high priest.⁸ But in both cases he must also be fully human.

In Hebrews, as elsewhere in the New Testament, the traditional expectation of the Davidic messiah ruling Israel and the nations on earth is subsumed into the cosmic role of the exalted Lord who, seated on God’s heavenly throne, brings the whole of creation to the acknowledgement of God’s lordship. As such he bears the divine name, the Tetragrammaton, and he exercises the sovereignty proper only to God. Hebrews makes little of the humanity of Jesus in this role of lordship, being more interested in developing the need for the high priest to be fully human, but does acknowledge it: the cosmic Lord is also the royal Messiah born into the tribe of Judah (7:14).

The most distinctive contribution of Hebrews to Christology is, of course, its understanding of Jesus as Melchizedekian high priest. Here it is probably the need for Jesus to be fully human, acting in solidarity with his fellow-humans on their behalf, that is most obvious in Hebrews, but, as we shall see, Hebrews also regards it as essential that Jesus as heavenly high priest participate in the unique identity of the one God, seated on the cosmic throne.

3. The Narrative Identity of the Son (1:2b–4)

Hebrews begins with an overwhelming emphasis on the full and eternal deity of the Son, carefully presented in the forms, first, of a sketch of the Son’s narrative identity in seven compact descriptions (1:2b–4), and, secondly, a catena of seven scriptural texts designed to establish and expound the Son’s full deity (1:5–14). The two sections are connected by the key text Ps. 110:1: the narrative sketch concludes with an allusion to it (sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high) and an indication of the kind of superiority to the angels this entails. The catena itself ends with a citation of Ps. 110:1 (1:13), forming an inclusio and showing that its purpose is to bring the other texts to assist the theological exegesis of Ps. 110:1. The catena too is concerned with the exaltation of Jesus above the angels.

The structure of the exordium (1:2b–4) is:

The content of the exordium is largely traditional, with close parallels in other extended New Testament accounts of protological and cosmic Christology, including Phil. 2:6–11, Col. 1:15–20, Eph. 1:20–23, and the prologue to John’s Gospel. Only the fifth statement is quite unparalleled and points up, at this early stage, the aspect of Christology which this epistle is later to develop creatively: the high priestly atonement. With the only possible exception of that fifth statement, the statements are designed precisely to include the Son in the unique divine identity of Jewish monotheistic belief. The characteristic phrase all things (points 1 and 4), varied with the worlds (point 2) is monotheistic language designed to distinguish God from the whole of the rest of reality,⁹ which he created and rules, and functioning here to put the divine Son, Jesus, on the divine side of that distinction. In this sevenfold narrative, the humanity of Jesus is no more than implicit, but, while the whole is predicated of the divine Son, it does also introduce the roles of lord and high priest that the Son undertakes in the last days. The Son is destined for eschatological lordship (appointed heir of all things) and is exalted to the right hand of God in order to exercise it. The Son is also the one who makes high priestly atonement.

The lack of explicit treatment of the humanity of the Son here in the exordium is supplied in chap. 2, where the human inclusivity of the sonship of the incarnate Son is expounded. However, there is one other point of importance about the divinely exclusive sonship of the Son in Hebrews. Many scholars regard Jesus’ sonship in Hebrews as a status to which he is appointed at some stage of his narrative, whether at incarnation, resurrection or exaltation, and the alleged inconsistency of Hebrews on this point has been widely discussed.¹⁰ In my view the divine Son in Hebrews is Son of God from all eternity as well as to all eternity: sonship is the eternal truth of his very being, not simply a role or status given him by God at some point. The reasons this has not been sufficiently recognized are two. First, there is the quotation of Ps. 2:7: You are my Son; today I have begotten you, cited twice in Hebrews (1:5; 5:5). We shall return to the way Hebrews understands this text at a later point in this essay. The other reason for putting a temporal limit on Jesus’ sonship is the seventh and last of the statements in the exordium: having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs (1:4). In view of what follows in the catena most commentators have taken the name here to be Son. But this is a confusion. The name that is so much more excellent than those of angels must be the Hebrew divine name, the Tetragrammaton,¹¹ which is also said to be conferred on Jesus at his exaltation in Phil. 2:9 (the name that is above every name).¹² In our passage of Hebrews, the Son is the one who inherits the name from his Father, not what he inherits. What he inherits must be something that belongs to his Father, whereas Son is uniquely the Son’s title. Rather it is because he is Son, as the angels are not, that he inherits his Father’s name, as the angels cannot.

4. The Significance of the Angels in Chapters 1–2

The prominence of the angels in this part of Hebrews (a prominence significantly limited to this part of Hebrews)¹³ has often been associated with a so-called angel Christology or an angelomorphic Christology, whether as the object of the author’s polemic¹⁴ or as the basis for his own Christology.¹⁵ I think there is a much better way of understanding the function of the angels in this key christological context.¹⁶ Psalm 110:1, along with other texts, is first expounded to show the exalted Christ to be far superior to the angels. The author then turns to another text, Ps. 8:5–7, to show that, prior to his exaltation, Christ was for a time lower than the angels. The lowliness of incarnation was necessary on the way to the exaltation described in Ps. 110. In a thoroughly Jewish cosmological way the author is working with the imagery of height as indicative of status and identity. Traditionally the cosmic throne of God was placed above the heavens (cf. 7:26), at the summit of the cosmos, and far above all the ranks of angels within the heavens.¹⁷ This spatial superiority of God’s throne above the angels indicates God’s unique transcendence over all of created reality, even those glorious beings of the heavens that might be mistaken for gods but in reality are created beings subject to the one and only God’s rule. When the exalted Christ shares his Father’s throne on high he acquires precisely God’s superiority to the angels, indicated also by his acquisition of the unique divine name. But when the Son became incarnate as human he undertook the humble and mortal condition of earthly creatures below the angels. The imagery of height, descent and exaltation, is used similarly to the way it is in Phil. 2, but the angels in Hebrews add precision to the picture. They mark out the cosmic territory. They function, so to speak, as measures of ontological status. To be above the angels is to be God, to be below the angels is to be human. Above the angels, Jesus transcends all creation, sharing the divine identity as Creator and Ruler even of the angels. Below the angels, Jesus shares the common identity of earthly humans in birth, suffering and death.

5. The Full Divinity of the Lord (1:5–14)

The catena of seven scriptural texts in 1:5–14 is a fine example of the way in which sophisticated theological exegesis could be done merely by selecting and juxtaposing texts and providing the briefest of introductory comments. It has the following basic structure:

There is far more subtlety in this passage than we have space here to examine. Here I can only highlight the most important points for our present purposes.¹⁸

First, all the texts are related to the messianic rule of Jesus,¹⁹ understood as an exercise of the properly divine sovereignty, though in some cases this is obvious only in the contexts from which the quotations have been taken.²⁰ Traditional texts of Davidic messianism are linked with texts describing the cosmic rule of God over all things and with references to God’s sovereignty in the work of creation as well as rule. The image of the cosmic throne of God is evoked not only implicitly in the citation of Ps. 110 but also explicitly in the fifth quotation (from Ps. 45). The catena makes entirely clear that the exalted Lord Jesus is the one who shares the divine identity in the two crucial respects of creation of all things and sovereignty over all things.

Secondly, the Lord’s superiority to angels is not only grounded in his sonship, by which he participates in God’s own transcendence of all creatures, but is also supported by the claims that he himself created the angels (text 4), that they are his servants (text 4) and that they worship him (text 3). Thus in three key respects—creation, sovereignty and worship—the Son is related to the angels precisely as God is. The angels themselves acknowledge his unique divinity in worshipping him.

Thirdly, for its importance for what I shall be saying later, I want to draw attention especially to the sixth quotation. The author has changed the order of the first three words from the Septuagint text,²¹ so that the quotation begins, literally: you, in the beginning, Lord (σὺ κατʼ ἀρχὰς κύριε), thus placing the person addressed (Jesus Christ) at the same beginning with which Genesis begins, the primordial eternity before the creation of the heavens and the earth, for which the pre-existent Christ is also here made responsible. This carefully selected text becomes, in its new context, a christological reading of the first verse of Genesis comparable with the christological reading of that verse at the beginning of the Johannine prologue. But, unlike the latter, Hebrews is concerned not only with the Son’s preexistence in past eternity but also with his unchangeable identity for all future eternity. The scriptural words are used to attribute to the Son precisely what distinguishes the one God from all creation: the full eternity that God alone possesses, by contrast with the createdness, mutability and transience of all created things. Left to themselves all things perish, but God alone, here including Christ, has in himself the indestructible life that makes it possible for the psalmist to say: you are the same, that is, eternally.

6. The Full Humanity of the High Priest (2:5–18)

Our subject is the divinity of Christ, not his humanity, and so here I merely mention the way Hebrews portrays Jesus as the high priest who can fulfill his ministry only by sharing fully the human condition, becoming like his brothers and sisters in every respect, tested in every respect through suffering and death, so that he understands human weakness and now, from his heavenly throne, exercises mercy and grace to sinners. What is perhaps less well recognized is the connection between lordship (the subject of chap. 1) and high priesthood (the subject that chap. 2 begins to treat) that the author achieves by his use of Ps. 8. The latter is used to show that it is only through incarnation, humiliation, and everything it means to be mortal humanity that the Son could attain to his eschatological lordship over all things. This is because his lordship is exercised for the sake of his human brothers and sisters. It is now no longer simply the sovereignty he shared with his Father from eternity, but now a sovereignty exercised in human solidarity with humans. The cosmic throne is now also therefore the throne of grace that sinners can approach with boldness (4:16). So the high priestly work of atonement is the way in which he comes to exercise his sovereignty in the way that he does—salvifically.

7. The Full Divinity of the High Priest (7:3, 16)

The christology of Hebrews would have been simpler if the author had merely correlated Christ’s lordship with his divinity and his high priesthood with his humanity, but this is not what he does. As we have just seen, the fellow-humanity of the high priest is an indispensable and prominent element in Hebrews’ understanding of this office, and for the most part its functions are those of representing humanity to God: the high priest makes atonement for the people, offering sacrifice on their behalf (5:1), he enters the presence of God on their behalf (6:20; 9:24), and he intercedes for them (7:25).²² Furthermore, unlike cosmic lordship, high priesthood does not belong to the unique identity of God.²³ Whereas to rule all things from the throne of God is to be God, to be high priest on earth or in heaven by no means carries such an implication. What need was there for the great high priest, the finally adequate high priest, to be divine? We shall see.

Here, as elsewhere, the theological method of Hebrews is exegetical. The starting point is v. 4 of Ps. 110, where the same one who in v. 1 is exalted to the right hand of God on his heavenly throne is addressed: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Just as in Heb. 1 the implications of Ps. 110:1 are expounded with the help of other, related scriptural texts, so, in Heb. 7, the meaning of the obscure v. 4 of Ps. 110 is expounded through recourse to another biblical passage, which contains the only other occurrence of the name Melchizedek in the Hebrew Bible: Gen. 14:17–20. The two texts have at least this connection: that in both cases Melchizedek is both king and priest. In that respect he well serves the christological purpose of Hebrews, which is to develop the high priestly profile of Jesus alongside and in connection with his messianic lordship.²⁴

Although there is not space to discuss this here, in my view the figure of Melchizedek in Hebrews has very little in common with the figure in the Melchizedek scroll from Qumran.²⁵ We do not really need to suppose that any preexisting traditions about Melchizedek²⁶ lie behind the text of Hebrews,²⁷ though the author may well have shared with other exegetes an interest in this figure provoked by his mysterious and anomalous appearance in Genesis as the first priest in Scripture, a non-levitical priest with apparently no line of descent to qualify him for what Israel knew only as a hereditary office. But our author’s real interest in Melchizedek arises from the fact of his appearance in Ps. 110, the most important christological psalm for the first Christians. Indeed, the author is not really interested in Melchizedek himself, for his own sake, but turns to Genesis purely in order to understand what it would mean for the Messiah of Ps. 110 to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek.²⁸ Not Melchizedek himself, but Melchizedekian priesthood is the point. So what is said about Melchizedek himself in Heb. 7 need not be taken too seriously as a statement about the historical figure in Genesis. Its point is its application to Jesus.

We need to bear this in mind especially when we look at the remarkable v. 3 of Heb. 7, which says of Melchizedek:

Without mother,

without father,

without genealogy,

having neither beginning of days nor end of life,

but resembling the Son of God,

he remains a priest forever.

We should notice that this is both derived from the Genesis text and used to explicate the words from Ps. 110: you are a priest forever.

In an article of 1991,²⁹ Jerome Neyrey showed, I think conclusively, that this is hellenistic true-god language. In other words, it is the kind of language philosophically inclined writers used to define what it is to be a true deity, as distinct from, for example, a deified hero. True deity is in the fullest sense eternal, having neither origin in the past nor end of life in the future. A true deity is unbegotten or ungenerated (ἀγέννητος)—having no parents—and unoriginated (ἀγένητος)—having no other kind of origin—as well as being imperishable forever. The three terms in Hebrews beginning with the alpha privative (ἀπάτωρ ἀμήτωρ ἀγενεαλόγητος) are typical of the negative descriptions used in hellenistic god-language.³⁰

What is particularly important

Reviews for The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology

[deusvitae · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The papers given regarding the letter to the Hebrews to the St. Andrews Conference on Scripture and Theology.These papers do not have a unifying theme beyond the Hebrews letter. They cover many aspects of the letter: Christology, cosmology, supersessionism, soteriology, modern application, theology of Scripture, and the call to faith in Hebrews 11. As with all such collections there is some unevenness in papers. Bauckham's incisive analysis of chapter 1 as it relates to Jesus' divinity is masterful and worth the whole work. The exploration of His humanity and the exordium as a whole is good. The cosmological perspective is interesting; Polkinghorne will always make you think. The discussion of supersessionism is relevant and surrounds Hays' perspective on the matter. The discussions on salvation and faith are good; Witherington's concluding sermon is apt.A useful resource when considering the letter to the Hebrews.